Alfa (day one)

82" X 72"
First work in a series of 26 pieces documenting the narrative account of an individual's passage through time, as he encounters various physical, emotional, and chemical obstacles.

Thoughts on the Butterfly Drawings:
I've been thinking recently about the Butterfly series (large-scale connected works) as a way for me to connect drawing to tapestry. Tapestry in terms of scale, verticality, and the slowness / intricacy of the woven visual processes - like when I first saw the Unicorn Tapestries at the Cloisters I was floored by their density. Relatedly, I'm thinking of the tapestry as a complex interwoven story or series of events. I like that duality as it relates to drawing images today, and after making the printed accordion books (on books page), was thinking that each work's translation into book form is vital as a way for them to be handled or 'read'. The scale of the original works hopefully requires something closer to looking, and they're only viewable at that specific time while in front of them, but when the story is condensed into a book, it might be more read anywhere, even in private - like chapters or pages of a novel. I also just love experimenting with the book as form..//
I'm also interested in how the works can reflect our times in different ways - since I can make only around 2 or 3 per year, the content of the drawings is always relevant to what's happening politically or socially now, and the images and symbols reflect that. But when viewed as a group, I hope that sense of time is condensed in the way a video game or movie condenses time and space. I mean, I hope they work independently of one another, but thinking of even a small group together is exciting for me.
// In terms of composition / movement, I see them more like Rube Goldberg machines or marble drops... those marble games when a marble drops down a convoluted path finally hitting bottom. In the drawings, I see the character as moving, literally, from top left to bottom right, across a field of obstacles, and then into the next large piece, where his movement continues. It's like gravity. But also the idea of inevitability - he is moving through experiences which affect his path, but the end point will be a place of rest, and is already decided / defined, but we just can't see it. Like it's fated, predetermined, or something... also like a movie plot, or novel's character arc.